Reddit reviews Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Second Edition: Basics and Beyond

And for more in-depth reading on CBT, here is a text-book:
Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Just thinking out loud: many people tend to dislike the "think happy thoughts" suggestion, and yeah it's a bit ill-defined, but isn't that essentially where we'd like to end up?

CBT is one method for dealing with negative thoughts and Buddhism is another -- but neutralizing negativity only goes so far -- it's difficult to maintain a neutral mindset because you're always guarding against negativity. It's easier and more enjoyable to set your mind in a positive, "happy thoughts", direction -- and those "happy thoughts" tend to guard against negativity.

Yeah I do too. I'm just bad for it. It's like teachers in schools; they limit you too much on what you can do for people, and then after they limit you, you still have to get malpractice insurance because "for some reason," DERP, treatments don't work all that great. And by that I mean for prisoners and my profession is mental healthcare. Because in the real world, most of the people would have eventually fixed their own problems, with or without a therapist. I think the science says something like 80% of people would fix themselves. Forgot the exact numbers; but a vast majority would fix themselves.

I am not saying things in psychology do not work, but a lot of it comes down to stuff that people who are not fucking up their life know. If you're a person who isn't fucking up their life, and you meet someone who is, chances are you can develop a type of therapy that is as successful as what's out there now, without getting a college degree.

And the thing I find the most fucking stupid is, a lot of the people you study are from like the 70s, and they basically said "I studied psychology and this stuff is bullshit; I am going to come up with my own treatment method and keep track of the results to prove mine is better," which they did. So it was less than 50 damn years ago, and they ignored that shit they learned in college because it was basically garbage, but now we can't do the same thing. Mind you, they kept the good parts, which anyone with half a fucking brain cell could do now with current and older psychological methods, but that's it.

And because pieces of shit who can't fix their own fucking lives and want a "miracle pill" think psychologists can make them fart butterflies and piss rainbows, they decide to sue psychologists if they can't make it happen the exact second they want it to.

If you are thinking about paying a psychologist, I would try these first:

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Life-Other-Dangerous-Situations-ebook/dp/B00F8LP88U/

http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Behavior-Therapy-Second-Basics-ebook/dp/B005HROKHU/

http://www.amazon.com/Coach-Your-Own-Life-Barriers-ebook/dp/B00VQL4VW0/

http://www.amazon.com/Get-Life-You-Want-Neuro-Linguistic-ebook/dp/B001OD41PC/

http://www.amazon.com/Reboot-Your-Life--Work-Were-ebook/dp/B01344BZ3E/

http://www.amazon.com/End-Jobs-Meaning-9-5-ebook/dp/B010L8SYRG/

Those books have just enough technical knowledge (how/why to do stuff), inspirational ideology and "mystical psychological mumbo jumbo" to help you fix most of your own problems.

And the worst part is, you know in college the biggest message they kept stressing over and over? "Get paid up front; get a retainer if you testify in court, or you won't get paid, or it won't be in a timely manner." Like the #1 message over and over "Get paid." Pffft. What a jackass-filled tom-fuckin'-foolery inspired joke institutional psychology is. I wipe my ass with my whole college experience, and don't much enjoy the profession. It's not the people; it's the fucking invisible leash that makes it so you can't really help people.

Would not recommend, unless you just want a tedious job helping people who would mostly eventually help themselves anyway.